EPAMerck has said it is exploring possible sales of its consumer health and animal health businesses.

Merck's consumer health business may not be a top money maker, but it could fetch top dollar.

The Whitehouse Station-based drugmaker is looking to sell the division, which industry analysts predict could bring in $10 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Merck reported global consumer-care sales of $1.9 billion for 2013, or about 4 percent of total company revenue of $44 billion.

In the company's fourth quarter earnings announcement earlier this month, chief executive Kenneth Frazier repeated past statements that Merck is exploring options for the business, along with its animal health division.

Merck has said it expects to complete the process on both divisions and take action, if any, by year-end.

The company's animal health business is the second biggest in the world, behind Zoetis, which last year split off from Pfizer to become an independent company.

Merck's consumer business has more than $550 million of earnings, according to the Journal, which also reported that preliminary offers for the division have been made. Final bids will likely be due late next month.

Analysts have speculated ever since Merck inherited the consumer business in its 2009 acquisition of Schering-Plough, that the health care giant would unload it in some fashion, through a sale or joint venture.

That was only speculation because in May 2012, Frazier went on record as saying he didn't plan on breaking up the company by splitting off businesses the way Pfizer and Abbott Laboratories had done.

“My philosophy is fix what is broke, don’t do the fad of the day," Frazier was quoted as saying at the time.